Forum: College Avenue School building is worth saving for practical reasons

Posted: Tuesday, January 11, 2005

EDITOR'S NOTE: This Forum was submitted by the board of trustees of the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation, Inc., a private, non-profit foundation serving as an advocate for historic preservation in Athens-Clarke County.

Our community learned Jan. 3 that developers are planning to demolish the historic College Avenue School building at 500 College Ave. The architectural and historic significance of this 1908 building make it eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, and it is important for the community to know the history and significance of this building and to understand just what we will lose if it is demolished.

The College Avenue Grammar School building was built at its current location in 1908 in the Lickskillet section of Athens. Lickskillet was home to hundreds of residences torn down during urban renewal in the 1960s. The College Avenue School, the Ware-Lyndon House, the Church-Waddel-Brumby House (Athens Welcome Center), and portions of the Foundry Park Inn complex are all that remain from that historic time and neighborhood. The College Avenue building served as a school well into the 1960s and was later occupied by the Clarke County School District until 2003.

Early maps and photographs indicate the building has changed very little over its near 100-year existence. A 1910 photograph, found in Gary Doster's "A Postcard History of Athens, Georgia," shows the front entrance (Strong Street side) of the school; the only difference today is the modern outer doors that have been added (the original interior entrance is still intact) and some brick lattice infill on the sides of the front portico. The exterior of the building is virtually unchanged from when it was built in 1908. In 1941, a one-story addition was made to the northwest rear corner of the building. Tax records indicate the building underwent some sort of renovation in the 1970s. Changes appear to have been mainly interior with the exception of the installation of modern windows. Fortunately, the original window openings were retained and are clearly visible today. Also on the site is a late-1950s, one-story building, located east of the main school on Jackson Street, that served as the cafeteria for the school.

Abe Abouhamdan, engineering consultant for Athens Downtown Ventures LLC, which plans a multi-story mixed-use development for the site, was quoted in the Jan. 3 Athens Banner-Herald as partially attributing the need for demolition to problems with asbestos. According to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, however, asbestos is only a health hazard when it is "friable" (defined as "material containing one percent asbestos that when dry can be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder by hand pressure"); in many cases, asbestos materials (floor and ceiling tiles, for example) can be left alone. If asbestos-containing materials are present and have to be removed - which may well be the case with this building - the process, and thus the cost, is the same whether the building is rehabilitated or demolished, because the asbestos has to be removed prior to any work.

Another consideration, of course, is whether saving the historic building is economically feasible. Our response is that rehabilitation of the existing 1908 building and possibly the 1941 addition does not prevent significant additional development on the site and therefore viable alternatives should be considered. The current zoning for the lot is C-D (commercial-downtown) which allows considerable flexibility in the development of the lot. C-D zoning allows 100 percent lot coverage, so buildings can be built right up to the sidewalk. C-D zoning also allows a maximum building height of 100 feet and a maximum square footage of building space equal to five times the total area of the lot.

The 500 College Ave. lot is roughly 75,000 square feet, which means a developer could build up to 375,000 square feet. The historic building is only 21,000 square feet. In short, a developer could rehabilitate the historic building and build something new to the rear of the existing building where there is more than 30,000 square feet of undeveloped land. A five-story building in this area, something in keeping with the current downtown scale, for example, could add roughly 150,000 square feet to the development.

Saving the historic College Avenue School is not only feasible, it is essential. The choice seems pretty clear. For almost 100 years, the school building has served the Athens community and been a part of the education of many of our citizens. Today it stands as a historic and architectural monument in our downtown. We have lost many of our historic resources, especially in downtown, compromising our community's sense of place.

If landmark buildings such as this are not preserved, we risk losing that sense of place altogether. Admittedly, there are times when a building's worth is so diminished that its loss is inevitable, but the College Avenue School building is not one of those buildings. It is an ideal candidate for reuse, especially conversion into residential space. Because the building is eligible for the National Register, developers could potentially qualify for significant savings through the Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit program, if they were to rehabilitate it.

The developers of the Adcock Building, along Hull Street between Washington and Clayton streets in downtown Athens, and the Bottleworks complex on Prince Avenue, benefited from historic rehabilitation tax savings. In short, the College Avenue School building can be saved, is worth saving, and Athens should not settle for anything less.

We encourage the community to contact us with any questions and concerns and to wholeheartedly support saving this building.